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Featured Blogs about Raising a Family

Parents give advice and wisdom for Raising a Family.

Before reading the below essays submitted by our featured bloggers...

Do you write? Do you have your own blog? Do you want a national venue to share your thoughts and advice? Contact Us if you want to be considered as a Featured Blogger on Stage of Life in the Raising a Family stage.

Raising A Family Blog Archive

I walk on the beach by my friend's shore house with a towel wrapped around me. I smell the salty air that leaves a sensational taste on my tongue and makes my hair dance as the sun shines magnificently above me. The water is lucid and warm around my ankles. I take everything in as i close my eyes. Sounds of the peaceful waves coming out to shore fill my ears and make me forget my surroundings. I relax as my spirit binds...
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My daughter is a Daddy's Girl. Whether it's brushing her hair, fixing her dinner, or helping her get on the potty, the constant refrain is "No Mommy! Daddy do it!" Sometimes she tells me to go away, and it breaks my heart.

I think back to when she was an infant. I breastfed, and while I was super tired from night feedings, I loved that I was her world. I was her nourishment and her comfort. I was the center of her universe. Now, she's a super independent two year old, totall...
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According to the experts, children between the ages of 12 and 24 months experience great leaps in their vocabularies and talking ability. My daughter is living proof. At 17 months she is collecting words like crazy.

Mama. Dada. Go. Baby. See. Thanks. Sit—which actually sounds like a curse word if she is drooling a lot. I celebrated each new addition, up until the day I tried to feed her broccoli and got a surprise. She is not a vegetable fan to begin with. On that fateful afternoon,...
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Remember the carefree days when you could watch Maury and just laugh? Even as the correctional officers tried to scare those unruly preteens straight, you could sit back and say, “That'd never happen to my kid.” Now your own child is in trouble with the law, and you'd give anything to go back in time and scare some sense into him (or her) yourself. Unfortunately, time travel is not an option. So what can you do? You might not have a TV prod...
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Just because I have 4 children doesn't mean I am a super mom, or a parenting expert, or have any parenting secrets, or even am head over heels in love with parenting. Truth is; I am far from super mom, I daily feel like an inadequate of a mother, I am an expert of more unsuccessful parenting techniques than successful methods, and as painful as it is to admit; sometimes I really strongly dislike parenting.

This winter has been especially difficult for my family as everyone has battle...
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Being A Teenager – Being A Conformist?You like loud music, hanging with friends and you can never have enough parties. You just cut your hair to match your best friend’s and you love wearing jeans. You’re a teenager. But being a teenager is more than just music and clothes – being a teenager is about being you.Depression. Stress. Anxiety. Well over half the teenagers who experience depression, stress, anxiety or a combination of the three, experience it because they think they don’t...
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Yes, just as the title of this essay states, I read my daughter's diary tonight.

Now, before all of you privacy buffs start throwing stones about me trampling all over my daughter's trust (yes, she did ask me and my wife NOT to read it), let me first say that she's only seven years old.

She's in 1st grade.

I feel that at this stage in the parent-child relationship, my curiosity trumps her privacy.

We all work (most of the times) within the parameters set by the real or perceived consequences of our actions. When we, intentionally or unintentionally, do things without considering the consequences, we face them. Eventually. That, I believe, also works as an effective parenting technique. What better way to teach your child to heed the consequences of their actions than to let them have a brush with a few unpleasant ones?

As a mother kicking off 2012, I really want to get in shape. So, I started thinking about what I can do to accomplish that. Last week, I went for a run. I took the dog and just went. It was great to clear my head, but then I realized that if I wanted to keep up this new stress relieving fitness activity I was going to need a sports bra.

Look at her, the ‘leader’With her nose held up so highStrutting past these school hallsWith her superiority complex, but why?The crowd she carries alongLike nobles to a kingBe like the tail of the dog, and Into a higher class she shall bring

Oh yes! This is feudalismShe shall be the permanent queenAwards status to build an entourageIs still valid the Old Regime?Hierarchy still existsThe aristocracy isn’t dead Read More

We've had a few emails from Stage of Life readers recently asking about the benefits of vitamins. Most of the questions boiled down to the question, "Is a multivitamin good for you?"

As an Editor for the site, I was assigned to answer this question. Here's what we do in my family...

Just this last fall, I started buying and giving my two children a daily multi-vitamin. It's a gummy bear vitamin and my kids love it (obviously). The reason I'm doing this is my seven-year...
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I just wanted to share an article I found during my daily reading. The article, If Your Kids Could Make The Rules of Divorce, makes some pretty good points that parents could learn from. It lists ten rules for parents to follow to make divorce easier for kids, including...Read More

With Black Friday and Cyber Monday quickly approaching, I've been making shopping list for family, friends, and co-workers. My list goes on and on, it spans over multiple shops and stores, and the worst part about it is, there is nothing on the list for myself.

As a mom, wife, daughter, co-worker, and friend, I want to buy myself a gift this year. Is that selfish? I hope not, because after my past Black Friday experiences my family are lucky I even shop these days.

Being in a Biggest Loser competition makes it feel like much of my life revolves around formulas. Formulas of how many calories, how many ounces, how many grams, how many miles will combat how many pounds.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could break parenting down into a formula. How easy would parenting be if there were concrete formulas like; practice so many spelling words and get an A, give so many time outs and get a well behaved child, so many hours of sleep and no crabbiness, so man...
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Just recently, I began practicing for college interviews and I came across the question, “What is your best quality?” I thought about this for awhile, but could not think of a definitive answer. I have several good qualities (including modesty). For the sake of this essay, let’s call my interviewer Suzy. If Suzy is a bit OCD, maybe my best quality is that I am extremely organized and I absolutely relish in my ability to make lists for every occasion, whether they are pro-con lists, to-d...
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I have a weird relationship with food. I want to call it a love/hate relationship, but I feel that those words don’t accurately describe it. There was a period in my youth when I would eat nothing but spaghetti with butter, or cream of wheat. Then, in college, I spent an entire summer eating fast food. I ended up becoming very sick, and my weight fluctuated between 20 and 30 pounds every year. Now that I am a “grown up”, I understand my body better. I know what I can eat, what I can trea...
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One of the best things that could have ever happened to me was my mom teaching me to cook at a young age. Not only was it fun, and a good bonding experience, it helped me with self preservation and survival after I had moved out on my own! It wasn’t very often that you would find me having less than my own home cooked meal as an independent single living in my apartment. In fact, my pad was the home to my friends and cousin of such weekly rituals as ‘taco feed’ nite with homemade spanish ric...
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My family and I take photos all the time, but to me fall is the best season for photos. All the colors and shapes make for some great photos. I recently read an article from Kodak with some tips on how to make your fall photos fresh and fun.

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